These days, good PHP object-oriented libraries are all around and easily available. To me, it is actually thrilling to be part of this flourishing community, while working with Symfony2 and blogging about the Framework, the Components and their neighbors (like Silex). [...] Still, to me, contributing felt like too big a step to take right now. Until a few weeks ago, when I was looking for something I needed (a PHP client for the Microsoft Translator API) and could not find a decent solution. I decided to make it myself, and share it online.

He shares his "checklist" of steps he followed to get the library up and working (less about the library and more about the process):

Write the code

Initialize a Git repository

Add a composer.json file

Add unit tests

Make it open source and developer friendly

Push your code to GitHub

Register your project at packagist.org

Register the Packagist Service Hook

Versioning

Continuous integration using Travis CI

He also suggests that, at least at the outset, you skip some of your tests that might rely on external data sources/resources (so the build can start as green on Travis) then coming back and refactoring to mock things out correctly. It might look like an intimidating list for a beginner, but it's a great process to follow to have a robust, effective development/deployment process.